ready to fence?

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

Alot of people talk about not fencing in tournaments for a while, or not bouting for a while, until you have the basics. This I believe, needs to be explained.

If you fence without a thorough grounding in the basics, you're likely to start fencing sloppy to get touches. This may work for you against new fencers, or even great fencers, but in the long run, the victories will prove inconsistent, because they are more or less random. These random actions, reinforced by "victory", will become bad habits. You don't want bad habits, and you don't want your fencing to be a crap shoot.

If you can go to a tournament and just say "I'm here to work on fencing with good form, whether I win or lose" then you are ready to compete. Otherwise, practice the fundamentals (footwork, bladework), and when you bout in practice, focus on using good form and technique.

[glowstix]

i waited a year to compete..

[FeatherBlade]

Originally Posted by glowstix

i waited a year to compete..

indeed...

[Pauli]

4 months - and then immediately nationals (that's possible here tx to the small size of our country). I didn't make it anywhere. But I think, in the beginning, it doesn't matter. It's the experience that counts.

I'd say, train yourself well and go for it without putting yourself under pressure.

[FeatherBlade]

Ok, I didn´t forget + I survived my first tournament
So here it is:
Recap. fencing less then 3 months,1x/week, sabre.

Results:
14th out of 15 (W seniors vs. juniors)
I was so nervous, that I really had to concentrate to plug myself to the reel...

And I agree 100% with Pauli, it really helps

Originally Posted by Pauli

But I think, in the beginning, it doesn't matter. It's the experience that counts.
I'd say, train yourself well and go for it without putting yourself under pressure.

[Valerio Versace]

I'm not sure about this argument, supporting the idea that bouting early or start doing tournaments soon is bad.
On my first day of fencing, it was the very first day of pre-season preparation, so everyone did only some conditioning, footwork and stuff like that. The very second day I went to my fencing club, me and a friend of mine just took two club epees, masks, uniforms, asked a friend to borrow two body cords and we just started fencing. We somewhat knew how to stay en guarde, he always had very explosive legs and started doing some fleches (which he saw being done by other club mates), and I mostly tried stop hits.
No one stopped us, so we started bouting with some other people on the very same day. Then, the coaches almost immediately started giving us lessons and most bad habits didn't have time to develop, they were just "built in" as innate mistakes... and I still have to work on some of them somehow.
As long as newbies don't overlook the basics, spending all of their time at the club bouting, I don't think that bouting is inherently evil.

[Angwilwileth]

Thanks for the information everybody. It's really been helpful.